Shortly after putting together the creative team for the small-screen adaptation of the classic fantasy novel series, a rumor has begun making the rounds about the first season of Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series. Namely, that it will span across 20 episodes, as revealed by Tolkien scholar Tom Shippey in an interview with Deutsche Tolkien. (via Cinema Blend)
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“The exact locations are of course uncertain and it could well be several. The shooting itself does not take place chronologically, but is oriented towards the locations,” Shippey said. “Logically, you try to bundle all the scenes that take place in one location and film them so that you have it done and don’t have to return to that place several times. But this also implies that everything has to be clear at the start of filming, you have to know the end. There’s supposed to be 20 episodes for the first season. So until they’ve decided what the end is going to be, they can’t start filming.“
This episode count is much higher than Amazon’s usual totals for a season, so take this one with a grain of salt for the time being.
Juan Antonio (J.A.) Bayona (Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, The Orphanage, The Impossible) will direct the first two episodes of Amazon Studios’ The Lord of the Rings TV series and also executive produce alongside his producing partner Belén Atienza. JD Payne and Patrick McKay are writing the series, with Emmy-winner Bryan Cogman (Game of Thrones) on board as a consultant and Gennifer Hutchison (Breaking Bad) making up a part of the writers’ room as well.
The highly-anticipated Lord of the Rings series will be set in the Second Age, Amazon recently confirmed. That places approximately 3,000 years of history between the series and the beginning of The Lord of the Rings. Casual fans may not realize it, but Jackson’s Fellowship of the Rings actually depicted the end of the Second Age, when the last alliance of elves and men confronted Sauron’s forces. The Second Age covered nearly 3,441 years, and it began after the banishment of Morgoth, the dark lord before Sauron. There’s a lot of story potential in that time, including the rise of Sauron, the creation of the One Ring, and the emergence of the Ringwraiths.
Buy the Lord of the Rings films here.
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The Lord of the Rings series is produced by Amazon Studios in cooperation with the Tolkien Estate and Trust, HarperCollins, and New Line Cinema.
Production is set to begin in 2020 for Amazon’s Lord of the Rings series and is expected to premiere in 2021.
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